


A Man Both Good and True

by bubhh, SeaWitchDreams



Series: Stories Grim As Pistol Lead [2]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Drumbot Brian centric, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:48:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28734444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubhh/pseuds/bubhh, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeaWitchDreams/pseuds/SeaWitchDreams
Summary: After meeting a new addition to his clan, Brian tries to make sense of his past.
Series: Stories Grim As Pistol Lead [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2106585
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	A Man Both Good and True

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time in years I post something I wrote, and the first time ever I post something in English. I am absolutely terrified.  
> anyway, this story is a part of a much larger universe, and other stories (and more members of the crew) will probably show up soon. Title is from 'lost in the cosmos'.

The prison cells in Camelot are unbearably hot even at night. Their only inhabitant, Brian, finds himself grateful that he can no longer sweat. He misses the cool nights of the land where he was born, an ocean away from here. Vampires were not meant for these temperatures.

Of course, humans aren't meant for these temperatures, either. There hadn't been a human here in a very long time (he isn't sure quite how long. He stopped counting, after the first few years. A decade, at least). There is nothing left in this ghost town, no remnant of the lively haven of Arthur's dreams. Nothing but the dead man that foresaw its end yet failed to prevent it.

Then why is he hearing footsteps?

He tries to stand up, but cannot find the strength to push himself onto his feet. It has been so long since he last fed. Thirty years locked up here when there was still a sheriff to tell him the date, and however long it had been since.

Maybe it is better that he cannot stand. it has been so long, and he is so hungry. If there is truly a living human in Camelot once again, he is not sure even his hat and his morals could stop him from tearing out their throat.

The footsteps are getting closer. He can hear voices now, too - at least two of them. One of them sounds… familiar.

Suddenly, there is a figure at the other side of the cell’s door, trying to look inside as it fiddles with the lock (It’s no use. Arthur made sure to use good locks in his cells, just like anything else he used, and he took his keys with him on his last ride). He recognizes that red hair just as she calls out to him.  
“Brian? Is that you?”  
Oh.

Its Ivy.

He tries to answer, but his throat is to dry, and the words don’t come out. Outside, Ivy realizes the lock is stuck and instead reaches out and carefully tears the door of its hinges. She hurries in and crouches down in front of him.

“It _is_ you.” She frowns. “Um, you don’t look so good. What happ - Oh, right. Blood.” She raises her voice. “Jonny!”

“Found something?” Right. Brian almost forgot about the second set of footsteps.

“Yes! He needs blood. can you go and kill something?”

“Oh, sure!” The enthusiasm in his voice is unmistakable. “be right back!”

“We need the horses though, so not them!”

“I wasn’t gonna kill the _horses!_ There's a road nearby. I’m sure I can find something fun to kill.”

Huh. there didn’t use to be a road near Camelot. Brian tries to focus on that, rather than the rest of the conversation, as Jonny’s steps fade in the distance.

Finally, he finds his voice. “Who…?”

“Oh, that’s Jonny. I asked him to come help me look for you. He’s… Carmilla made him a few years ago.”

Despite the awful heat, Brian is suddenly cold. “Carmilla doesn’t turn people.”

He has always been grateful for that. as complicated as his own relationship with Carmilla is - a mess of gratitude and familiarity and resentment he did not care to examine - he is well aware that she is… not good with people. Not good _for_ people. Even when she tries (especially when she tries).

“Evidently, that is not true.” Ivy says in a logical tone as she helps him to stand. “She has made at least one. She said she needed him for musical backing, and also some company.”

Brian sighs as he steps out of the cell. He doesn’t regret leaving, or finding his way to Camelot - he had to try, at least one more time (that is what he always tells himself, isn’t it? just one more try. Maybe this time they’ll listen) - but he should have been there, not rotting in the empty prison of a ghost town. The three of them - four of them, now - are not a clan, not truely, but he always tries to keep an eye on them, to provide a voice of reason.

Then they step out of the building, and any thought of Carmilla or of his own failures evaporates.

It has been so long since he has last felt the wind. It feels like digging himself out of the grave all over again, like the breaking of dawn, back in those distant days when that sight seemed beautiful instead of terrifying.

He stands there for a while, staring at the starry sky stretching out above him. Ivy wanders off to poke at rubble and try and break into abandoned houses. He should tell her that Camelot was not the sort of town whose residents owned many books, but… he just needs a moment to just breath.

The moment is over with Jonny’s return, dragging a human corpse behind him. He makes his way to the prison’s gate , allowing Brian to take a look at the new addition to their little not-clan for the first time. Even if Ivy hadn’t told him, Brian would’ve known he was young - only fresh vampires looked like that, like they belonged in the time and place they had found themselves in. The older ones, like Brian himself, tried their best - or at least, some of them did - but there was always something a little off.

although, to be fair, Brian doesn’t think most people in this time period wore so many belts.

Aside from that, though, he looks like a local, from his blood-splattered boots to the hat on his head, and the gun hanging from one of the belts. He tosses the dead man at Brian’s feet.  
The hunger takes over. It has been decades since Brian last fed - vampires can go a long time without eating, and he has more experience than most but - they aren’t meant to go that long. He falls to his knees, pulls the body close, and tears into its neck.

When he is aware of his surroundings again, he realizes Jonny is talking.

“ - tried to bring you a living one, but it just burst into flame as soon as we got into town, and I had to go and chase down the other one.”

Brian raises his head from the corpse and tries to focus on Jonny, wiping the blood from his face with one hand. “burst into flames?”

“Yeah. It was actually quite interesting to watch, but also, what the hell? And anyway, what is up with this place in general? It is mid-november and the air is burning.”

“well, this area of the land is known for its high temperatures and - “

Jonny’s voice is impatient. “I grew up in the west, Ivy, it is not that fucking hot."

"Well - "

"It's not that." Brian pushed the corpse away and stood up. "This place is cursed."

"Cursed? Cursed how?"

"The heat. It will burn any living thing that comes into town, so that nothing can survive here."

Ivy's eyebrows creased in worry. "It won't affect us though, right?"

"It hasn't touched me so far, I think it's safe to assume it won't."

“I suggest we get out of here anyway.”

“let’s go.”

Ivy and Jonny, as it turns out, arrived at Camelot in a cart pulled by two horses, covered to function as a shelter from the light after sunrise. they decide to head north, mostly at a whim - neither Jonny nor Ivy remember where they had left Carmilla when they decided to come find him, but they all agree she will probably catch up on her own at some point, and there’s no need to worry about her.

“I just suddenly realized it has been a really long time since I’d last seen you.” Explains Ivy. “Thought maybe we should go looking”

Brian isn’t surprised it took her close to fifty years to notice he was gone. most of their kind are bad with time, and worse the older they get - and Ivy is very, very old. So old sometimes Brian suspects she herself doesn’t know where she came from.

“Yeah, and she didn’t really explain much.” Adds Jonny from the front of the cart, where he is driving the horses. “Seriously, who even are you? Why are you travelling with Ivy and the dear doctor?”

“that… is a long story.”

“I like long stories.” says Jonny, half-turning to look at him. “especially if they’re bloody. and vampire stories always are. care to share? there’s a few hours until dawn.”

Brian doesn’t like talking about himself, usually. But it has been over fifteen years since he last talked to someone, almost fifty since it was someone who actually listened. And if he doesn’t tell it tonight, maybe he never will. when you’re going to be travelling with someone forever, it’s better to let them know who you are.

“alright.” He says. “Let’s start at the beginning.”

*

some part of Brian had always expected to die like that.

He has walked this earth for a long time, now. He had seen humanity at its lowest more often than at its highest. He had seen what people can become, when they are afraid, and how easily they become afraid of people like him. He was a witch, before he ever was a vampire. And for all that he did not see this coming, perhaps he had always known.

They had arrived at his house right after sundown, carrying torches. He had been waiting for them - had known they will come from the moment he saw the look on Father Moor’s reanimated face. Perhaps he should have tried to run - but daylight had come too fast, and he had sold his covered wagon years ago, when he moved into this house - and anyway, he has nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. And so, when they broke his door down, he had been waiting. He could have fought back - could have killed several of them, probably, with his teeth and his knife and the magic that still sings in his veins, before one of the torches would have gotten him. But it will not save him, and he does not want to. It would feel like a waste - like a terrible betrayal, for a long and lonely life dedicated to doing the right thing to end with the slaughter of some foolish, terrified villagers.

And so here he is now, bound in thick ropes, watching as they prepare the stake. Most of the townspeople are here. Some are notably absent - the blacksmith, whose leg Brian had healed three years ago. The shoemaker, whose child he managed to find in the woods earlier that year. A few of the others whom he’d helped during the decade he had lived in Green Hill. Not all of them - he had noticed a few familiar faces - but that is always the way with people, and Brian cannot find it in himself to feel betrayed.

The priest, of course, is right in the middle of things, giving orders and directing the preparations for this impromptu execution he is leading tonight. He is still wearing the gravedirt-stained robes in which he was buried, even though Brian knows he had had enough time to change. He wonders, distantly, if the man understands already what he has become. He wonders if the people know what had happened.

if they don’t know yet, they will find out soon. Brian is almost relieved he would not be there to see it.

The priest’s daughter is nowhere to be seen. Brian isn’t sure if he is bitter or glad.

there is a loud cheer when they are finished, and his time is up. Two men whose names he knows but right now cannot recall come and drag him, still bound, to the stake hastily raised in the town square. The people surround him looking up, and he cannot imagine what they are seeing. Unlike the priest, he did take the time to change - might as well die in his good clothes. He wonders if that fact makes the sight of his execution more impressive, or just grotesque.

His hat, improbably, is still on his head, and he finds an odd, small comfort in that. He likes that hat. Had worn it for decades, maybe even a century, he isn’t sure. it is the only possession he had managed to keep for so long, and he had grown very fond of it. He is glad he gets to burn with the hat on.  
Father moor shouts a command. on the far end of the square, someone lights a torch. Brian takes on last unnecessary breath and prepares himself -

And then then the woman is there.

She doesn’t just show up, not by magic, Brian doesn’t think - but she doesn’t walk into the square, or sneak into it, either. it’s just - one moment, the mob is crowding everywhere, whispering and yelling, hungry for blood - and then the woman is standing there in front of the stake, and everyone goes quiet.

Brian knows what she is immediately. It is written in every detail of her - her dark, sharp eyes. Her skin, unnaturally pale. Her short hair, the color of fresh blood. That smile, all teeth.

Brian has spent what feels his entire existence struggling to hide what he truly was. This woman, he knows, from just a brief look, has never tried.

The townspeople back away slowly, cowering in front of that cool, inhuman gaze, something in all of them recognizing a predator. All of them but Father Moor - recently rid of his old, human instincts, and yet too new to those he had now acquired. Outraged at the interruption, he steps forward.

“What is this?” He demands. “Who the hell are you?”

“My name is Carmilla.” Says the vampire. “But that’s ‘Doctor’ to you.”

She picked Father Moor by the front of his robes , And unceremoniously tossed him down the stairs.

A shout rises from the crowd, and several people rush forward to his aid. If he was still mortal, notes a distant part of Brian’s mind, that fall would have caused severe damage. If the Father had any hope to keep his inhuman condition a secret, it was shattered the moment he hit the ground.

Carmilla ignores all of that. "Never liked the clergy." She says offhandedly , stepping forward toward him and pulling a long, sharp knife from her dark cloak. She gestures with it on the rope tying Brian to the stake. “Need a hand?”’

“Please.” Brian gets out, still staring at her in disbelief and wonder. “I - why?”

“Our kind should stick together. Makes it easier to handle situations like this." she says, expertly hacking at the ropes . "Besides, it can get lonely, spending an undead eternity alone."  
Brian has never met another vampire before. He had wondered about others, sometimes - an odd longing he could not name. Brian does not think of himself as immortal - cannot comprehend the weight behind that word. But the last few centuries had been very, very lonely.

The ropes drop to the ground, and Carmilla steps back and offers him a hand. "Shall we?"

He takes her hand.

“Thank you.” He says. “Doctor.”

Carmilla laughs.

And so they walk out of the town together, away from the unlit stake, away from the silent crowd of terrified, furious people, away from disastrous consequences of his actions, and into the darkness that had claimed them as her own.

*

“Excuse me.” Jonny’s voice cuts in just as Brian finishes his story. He points an accusing finger. “We said start from the beginning. _That_ is not the beginning. Stories don’t _start_ with burning stakes, they generally _end_ with them.” He considers it for a moment. “The fun ones do, anyway.”

Brian sighs. “Fair enough.”

so. Where does this story start?

_Let's try this again_.

*

If you asked the people of Green Hill When, exactly, did Top Hat Brian move into the area, none of them would have been able to tell you. It hadn't been very long ago, on that everyone can agree - Jill is not yet seventeen, and she can still remember a time when the crumbling old tower right outside of the town stood empty.

Ms. Martha from the bakery, who is known for her good memory, claims that he first showed up ten years and five months ago, exactly a month before christmas, riding through town in a small wagon full of books and weird boxes - but she must be wrong, because Top Hat Brian seems much too young to have been traveling like that back then, only a few years older than Jill herself.  
But regardless of when he had arrived, he was there now - whether you liked it or not.

Jill's father did not.

It was not that he was unpleasant, or that he caused trouble. On the contrary - he was one of the nicest people Jill has ever met. He was polite to a fault, never bothered anyone, and on the rare occasions when he came into town, paid handsomely for anything he bought.

It was just… well, there were the rumours.

People who walked near his house after sundown heard odd voices, sometimes, noticed weird smells or saw strange lights through the shut windows. His garden was full of weird herbs, and it was said he used them to create odd potions that could cure even deadly illnesses. And that was all that had been is his garden, for he grew nothing edible and never bought food in the town. The small group of bandits that bothered the townspeople was never seen alive again after they headed for his tower, although the body of one of them was found, two weeks later, drained of blood.

He only came to town after nightfall. And he never came to church.

There were only so many conclusions the people could reach.

The word 'witch' had not been said, not truly - not in the way that counted. It had been whispered. It was said quietly during conversation in the market, spat out by a drunk at the tavern, told gleefully by the older children to the younger ones. But it had not been said _out loud_ , not openly, not an accusation.

Not yet.

Jill knew it was only a matter of time. The town’s priest's only daughter, she had grown skilled at observing those around her, reading the directions in which the townspeople thoughts had run . She had seen the fear and hatred in her father’s eyes, heard the suspicion in his voice, watched as they grew every time another one of the town’s people made their way to the old tower asking for a remedy for their troubles, and came back blessing their neighbor and not their god.

She had listened, quiet, unnoticed, as he spoke to guests in his house and to followers outside the church, speaking of blasphemy, warning of the devil who comes bearing gifts, of acts of magic that are an insult to God’s glory.

some of them didn’t listen. some of them didn’t care. God is all good and nice, they’d not-quite-said, but when your animals are sick, or when your crops are dying, or when your child is injured - well, sometimes it is good to be able to ask for help from someone with a more tangible answer. There are a lot of things people are willing to turn a blind eye on, from someone with those answers. At least as long as the only ones to suffer a dark fate were bandits.

Jill… isn’t sure what to think. Her father is not immune to mistakes - she knows it better than anyone - but loyalty still calls her to his side. And it scares her, some of the things Brian can do. She has heard enough tales to be wary of strange men who claim to give you the impossible.

And yet.

Jill has snuck up the hill, a few times, when the work was done early and one of the townspeople was seen walking the road to the tower. just to keep an eye on things, she tells herself. Just to make sure nothing horrible was happening right outside their town. She had watched the people who came up to the old tower, wary or hopeful or desperate, asking for help no one else could give. _Heal the sick, find the lost, fix what has been broken_ \- she had watched as he mixed potions and gave advice and warnings, watched as he healed and fixed and found and, on the rare occasions where he could do nothing, tried to offer comfort. Watched him do things that could not possibly be natural - things that could only be magic.

she had seen how he always tries to help, how he never asks for payment. she had seen, and she knows that he cares.

Top Hat Brian is kind. Jill cannot believe the devil exists in a man like that.

That is why she does it, in the end. That is the explanation she gives, in the days and years and decades that follow. _He was kind,_ she says. _I could see no evil in him_. to her father, to her neighbors, and most of all to herself. _I was desperate, and there was nowhere else I could turn and he was kind._

Because Jill is not yet seventeen, and her father is sick.

Jill is not yet seventeen, and yet unmarried, and her mother is long dead, and her father is dying.

He will not admit it - not to his congregation, not even to her - but Jill knows.

It starts small - coughing, a passing headache, bouts of weakness, _Jillian, go and fetch that for me_ for things he once would have done on his own, and for the first month she lets herself believe that it is not serious, that it will pass.

It does not pass.

Instead it gets worse, and worse, until eventually he can barely leave the house for the sermon, and collapses as soon as he comes back. There is no physician in town, and after two months Jill rides to seek advice from the one who lives two towns over.

His face is grim when she describes the situation. “Rest and prayer and hope.” He says. “That is all I can tell you.”

rest and prayer and hope are not enough. The town’s people begin to notice, to whisper, to send worried glances their way. and her father keeps getting worse.

On the day he fails to make it to the door in the morning, she finally says: “Maybe - maybe we should ask Top Hat Brian for help.”

The cold, calm hatred in his eyes makes her flinch. “never suggest such a thing to me again.”  
She doesn’t.

three days later, he doesn’t wake up.

At first, for one terrible moment, she thinks he had died in his sleep during the night. Then she notices he is still breathing - just barely, but that does not matter.  
There is still time, then. not much - no more than a day, most likely, but there is still time.

And so Jill composes herself. She goes to inform the priest’s aide that her father is unwell and will not be in the church today. and then she puts on her good boots, ties back her hair, and walks in the road up the hill, and knocks on the tower’s door.

Brian opens it after a moment, eyes widening in surprise at the sight of her. “Jillian. I… did not expect to see you here.”

“My father is dying.” She says promptly, not bothering with pleasantries. “Will you help?”

His expression changes, and she cannot read it. He gives her a long look, as if searching for something in her face. She holds his gaze. After a short moment, he nods.

“Of course.” He says. “Let me get my bag.”

He follows her through the town and to her father’s house, and to her relief, doesn’t try to make conversation along the way. Passers-by pause to look at them with undisguised surprise and intrigue - the priest’s daughter and the witch, of all people, hurrying through town together - but that is another thing Jill can no longer care about.

Her father’s state is unchanged when she leads Brian to his bed, and the witch kneels beside the bed, does something she knows she will not understand and so does not bother observing.

He turns to her, and she knows the look on his face - knows it from those rare times when the witch’s petitioners returned home with empty hands and tear-stained faces.

“I’m sorry.” he says. “Maybe if he would’ve come to me a few days earlier… but it’s too late. there is nothing I can do.”

“No.” She says hollowly. Then it is as if all the emotions that existed so far away from her since she found him this morning come back all at once, taking her breath away. “No, no, he can’t just die, not now, not yet. He is all I have and I can’t - he can’t - please. Please, _save him._ ”

“I would have if I could.” He says, and she knows he is telling the truth, that no matter that her father is his enemy, is a danger to him as long as he is alive, he would have helped him if he was able to. She knows, and it doesn’t matter at all, because he isn’t - and that doesn’t matter, either, because her father cannot die, cannot leave her alone.

“He is all I have.” she repeats, and is not even sure what she is trying to say. He is all I have and so I love him. He is all I have and if he dies then I have nothing, and this world has no mercy for young girls who are left in it on their own, empty-handed. He is all I have and without him, who will I even be?

“Please.” she says again, her voice not quite breaking. “There has to be something.”

He looks at her for a very long moment. She tries to meet his eyes again, but the tears obscure her vision, and god, when did she even start crying?

In the end, he looks away.

“There is one thing.” He says. “But - it’s not a good thing, Jill. I need you to understand - It’s not a cure.”

“But he will stay?”

“He will. But there will be a price, and I don’t know if it’s one you or him are willing to pay.”

And then it is all laid before her, in its terrible simplicity. her father, dying. The witch, in his hand a curse and a salvation. a choice to make.  
It has the sound of a fairy tale, and she should have known better.  
But those things are so very easy to say, from the outside. So very easy to understand much later. So easy, and so useless.

“Alright.” she says.

And then there is no way back for any of them.

She listens as Brian tells her of what comes next. Her father will die today, he says, and will rise again with nightfall. And she should balk at that, maybe, but she is beyond that, now.

she watches, silent, at Brian cuts his hand and lets the blood drip into her father’s mouth. As he bares fangs so much sharper than a human’s, and drains her father’s blood until the shallow breathing stops.

They get the body out the back door and take it to the hills. Jill brings with her the shovel she sometimes uses in the church’s gardens, and they dig him a grave together. They lay him in, carefully, and cover him. And if Jill sobs, just a little, when her father’s face disappears beneath the earth, and if Brian strokes her hair, gently, and says nothing at all, then no one will ever know but the two of them.  
and then there is nothing to do but wait for sunset.

They sit down, side by side on the hillside, the shovel beside them and the grave in front of them and gravedirt staining their clothes, and watch the sky darkening together.

She can never remember just what they talked about, later, the details lost in all the harsh happenings of that fateful day.

it was a nice conversation. On the worst day of her life, at the edge of the cliff, it was nice.

she remembers that much, later. And that matters too.

An hour after the sun has disappeared beyond the horizon, there is a sound, like movement underneath the ground.

Jill freezes. Brian goes quiet in the middle of a sentence. When she reaches for the shovel, he stops her.

“He has to do it himself.” He says. “that’s the way it is done.”

Her father emerges from the earth like a nightmare, dark and monstrous and groaning, clawing his way back into this world, and for the first time since making her decision, Jill is afraid.  
His eyes focus on them, full of fury and revulsion and accusation.

“You.” he spits out, and Jill knows he means both of them. “What have you done?”

*

“Um, Brian?” Ivy’s voice stops him before he can decide whether or not he has to retell the next part.

“what is it?”

“That is all really interesting.” She says. “But I’m not sure that counts as the beginning either. I mean, it sounds sort of like the middle of the story. I think you should start earlier if you want to tell it right.”

Brian looks at her earnest expression, then moves his gaze to Jonny, who shrugs. He sighs again.

_okay._ he thinks. _one last time, here we go._

*

Once upon a time, there was a boy who could see the future.

_(There is no such thing as people who can see the future." Interjects Jonny, tone derisive._

_"Look, just let me tell the story. Properly, this time, from the beginning. So…")_

The boy was the son of a witch, and had inherited her gift of the arcane. And ever since he was very young, she had taught him the secrets of magic. She showed him how to heal and how to harm, how to find and how to hide, how to change and to trick and to grow and to protect. Everything she knew she had taught him, and for all that she was a simple village witch, she knew a great many things.  
But she did not teach him how to see the future. Such things cannot be taught. only written into the soul at birth, a gift and a curse all at once.

and the witch’s son was gifted and cursed and kind and full of faith, and he believed, to the depths of his then beating heart, that he could use all he had to do good.  
What a dangerous thing to believe.

It was in the winter of his seventeenth year that the witch's son first dreamed of the plague.  
The first night, he called it a nightmare. Not because he did not know the truth - he could always tell the difference between dream and prophecy. But still he called it a nightmare, because he did not want to believe.

But the dream came back. Night after night it came back, plaguing him with images of sickness and death, with the sound of despaired cries and the smell of burning bodies. And the witch’s son, who never lied, knew the truth, and did not hide from the future that was shown to him.

and so, on the first day of spring, when the ice was cracking in the river and the snow was melting from the roads, the witch’s son packed all his possessions that could be carried on his back, bid his mother goodbye, and took to the road.

(The witch watched him leave. And for all that she did not share her son’s gift, she had known, then, that he will never come back.)

The witch’s son who had become a wanderer went from village to village, from to town, and everywhere he arrived, he tried to warn the people of the coming plague. And in every village and every town, they did not believe him. they had laughed at him, when he told them of his dreams, and declared him a madman. Once or twice, he had shown them his magic, to prove to them the skills he possessed, the knowledge he had - and they feared him, and cursed him, and did not listen still.

It did not matter where the wanderer went, what he said, what he did - they laughed him away, and did not heed his words.  
and then the plague came.

At first they were laughing, and then they were dying, and all of his words mattered nothing at all.  
And so the wanderer became a healer, and at last he could help. not much - for every death he prevented, there were three that he could not. But that one death prevented mattered, too, and so he went on.

It was while doing his work that the healer met his end. It was not a dramatic end, but it was a sudden one - so sudden that all his knowledge of the future could not save him from it. He had stayed for hours in a sick woman’s house, trying to save her, or at least ease her pain. She died two hours after midnight, and the healer was tired and full of despair when he made his way home. He did not notice the figure that crept behind him, not until it lunged forward, grasped his shoulders and sank it’s sharp fangs into his neck _(‘it’ he says, for he has never seen his creator’s face. not then, and not in the centuries that had passed since then. He does not know their name, and in truth, he does not want to. It is so much easier to resent a faceless, vicious monster in the dark)_. This would have been the end of his story, if not for the fact that the healer, in his struggle, bit the arm that grasped him, and drew blood.

_("You did what!?"_

_"Look, I panicked, I just - oh, stop laughing!")_

They found his body in the morning, drained from blood and left to rot in the street. Had there been a witch around, or anyone else knowledgeable in such matters, they could have warned them of what it meant. But there was no one, and the healer was buried on the same day (many were burned, in those days, for so many had died. But he was a healer, and respected for that, and so his body was properly buried, not burned).

they put him in the ground before sundown, and two hours after midnight, he opened his eyes.

The vampire who was once a healer wandered the land for a long time, after that. He went from place to place, never staying for too long in the same one. if he did so out of fear or out of curiosity for the world around him, even he couldn’t tell you. He ate rarely, and killed even more rarely than that - and everywhere he went, he tried to warn of the futures he saw. and everywhere he went he tried, still, to be a healer.

It was that last fact that brought him, in the end, his greatest curse, and a kind blessing. The vampire had been living near a small town, at the time. And he had been using all his knowledge - whether magical or mundane in nature - to help the people of the town and protect them. Many of them loved him for that, and believed in the good he did for the town. Others - led by the priest who lived in the town - feared him, and believed he was messing with things best left for God. It was almost ten years after he had first moved near the town that the priest -

_(“yeah, alright, we already know this part.”_

_“you asked me to tell the story. I am telling the story.”_

_“And if you’d told it properly in the first place, we wouldn’t have this problem, wouldn’t we? anyway, this is not interesting now. Skip back to after you met the doc.”_

_“Oh, that was when you met me, wasn’t it?”_

_“right. so - “)_

And so, for the first time since he left his mother’s house so many years before, the vampire who was a healer and a wanderer did not walk the earth alone. The Doctor had introduced him to her companion - a vampire named Ivy of Alexandria, whose origins were long since lost in time. The three of them traveled the world together, not quite a clan, but not alone, either.

But for all the happiness the vampire-witch found in this new companionship, it did not take long for his mistakes on that dark night to come to haunt him. The mad vampire who had been a priest did not forget and did not forgive what was done to him, and he found a way to cast a curse on his creator. To punish him for making the wrong moral choice, the curse broke his morality in two - one half, the belief that the end always justifies the means, and the other, that the means are all that matters. The curse bound those two settings to the hat by which the vampire was often recognized -

_(“the hat? really?”_

_“Look, It’s not as if it was my idea, either.”)_

And… that is the end of the story, I suppose. the cursed prophet(-vampire-healer-wanderer-witch’s son) traveled the world with the Doctor and the Archivist. He had tried to do as much good, and as little evil, as he possibly could - for all that the meaning of those was no longer set in stone in his mind. And when a dream of fire and death came to him about a small town in western settlements of America, he found that he still wanted to do everything in his power to save them - still believed that he could use all that he had to do good.  
and so he went to warn them, one more time, and came to the town of Camelot.

_(“well? and then what?”_

_“I don’t want to talk about that. It’s not my story, anyway.”_

_“...alright.”_

_they fall silent, after that. The cart keeps rolling forward.)_

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on tumblr, I am @annietheseawitch, or to Noam, who is @bubhh


End file.
